Jo.gwillim

Sorry, i must admit i skim reading all the comments. Yes of course you are right. The main thrust of what i saying was the effect that magnet shape has on the shape of the magnetic field and in turn the effect that had on the sound quality. Especially in terms of harmonic content and perhaps sustain.

How about the shape of the magnetic field? As the string moves the field strength changes. This change in field strength is what's picked up by the coil and turned into a voltage. As the string moves closer/father away from a magnet the field from magnet is going to vary, so the output from the coil will vary. As ceramic and alloy magnets have very different shapes i would expect the way the field strenth changes in the area of the string vibration to be quite different. I could imagine this would affect the output waveform considerably.

Yep, I get that, i didn't want to buy another big thing that I'd only use occasionally. Power pack with inverter, small bass amp and barefaced midget works for me. I hope you find something that suits you, it must be a very common problem.

I'm more often than not playing through the house pa DI'd from my head with a BF cab as a monitor. Best stage sound deffo from 10inch cabs, but i can never be sure that the sound bod eq's to give a similar sound FOH. So still deciding for tonight's gig between the ten inch 210 or the 12 inch midget.

Always keen to natter to a bass chatter who's passin!

I learnt bass on a fretless, i gigged fearlessly with bad intonation for a few years , but then changed bands and went fretted when my new band mates winced. I love my fretless bass but have lost my gigging nerve. Would a ponytail help?

We've 2 more gigs to go before the band in its current form at least packs up. It's been ten great years, i think about 170 gigs, with time out for Covid. Last night we were so busy trying to nail a chrismas song for the gig tomorrow none of us stopped to realise it's the end of an era. Something else will take its place i know but i shall miss the old gang. We've had 4 big family deaths, cancers, niggles, more laughs on and off stage than i can possibly remeber for all of us it's been the band that has helped us through it all. What a privilege to be part of it.

Really hard isn't it. Concentrate too hard and i sound robotic. Not enough and make mistakes. Start enjoying the moment too much and forget where you are in the song, get too critical about the last mistake and play too safe. Very subtle balance that like you said nobody will really notice anyway!

I did a gig on Friday in a big old Welsh tabernacle with a 210 with an rm800 on top. Had the chance to hear another band from the stalls they used my rig. It sounded lovely. The sound guy switched off the pa feed.

Done that a couple of times , mortifying. Many funny looks!

Benefit gig in the local village pub, Corris in mid Wales, packed out as we've got 2 more gigs before we stop playing or regroup with a new guitarist. Graham bless him is fantastic but arthritis is making playing tortuous for him. Double special gig as our singer Beth's mum died unexpectedly 2 days before so she was singing for her dear mum. Such a buzz when the gig works, everybody in the pub singing and the sweat pouring off you.

What a great wealth of advice on this thread. For me it's Keep it fun Put itunes/radio/spotify on random and try to keep up. Sing the notes you want to play. Try to play what you sing rather than what your fingers tell you to do. Experiment with weird sounds and ways of playing let one thing lead to another just keep going. Something good usually emerges. I find this really helps me from getting stuck. Learn all the notes up and down the finger board. I've been lucky enough to play in more than one band simultaneously. Both need a very different style but what i learn from one really helps in the other and vice versa. So play with as many people as you can.